children – what a fool believes . . . .

Education

I wonder if we’re teaching our children what matters most.

Knowledge is important, of course, but in a world where data and information are at our fingertips – literally, given the proliferation of smartphones and other powerful devices that can educate us on any subject in seconds – perhaps we should be teaching them skills that help them interact with others. And not just in workplace settings either. Cooperation and collaboration in social groups and communities will be essential if we’re to achieve our greatest ambitions.

I believe that education should be the single highest priority for our societies. We owe all the members of our communities every chance to learn the things that they can leverage to build the kind of lives they want. It’s good for them, and it’s good for everyone else too, because if I’m doing what I enjoy, then I’m enthusiastically contributing to our society. And that’s the outcome we should be striving for. In jobs, in families, in communities.

We should be schooling everyone in the mechanics of healthy relationships, helping them to understand what a good relationship looks like and how to create one. And how to recognize and then navigate a relationship that’s not so good.

It’s probably a good idea to educate everyone in the principles of budgeting, estimating income and expenses, using credit appropriately. Basic financial skills can go a long way to alleviating stress in adult life, and that has so many benefits, especially with intimate relationships.

We might want to teach everyone the basics of transportation and home maintenance: how furnaces and home appliances work, how cars work, and how to keep them all in good working order.

And about nutrition – the kinds of nutrients we need, how to shop for groceries and how to prepare basic dishes.

In short, the kinds of things we need to know to live in balance with ourselves, with our neighbors, with our colleagues. It isn’t especially complicated – all of these topics and more can be taught in one high-school class period over a year.

Life skills.

Not more important than math or history or English or science. But still important enough to teach to a common level of understanding. I could have used something like it, and I believe most of my older teenage friends could have benefited just as much too.

Regrets

Parenting is many things. I just wish I knew how to make all of them easier.

I have found, however, that it’s easier on my children when I temper the regrets I feel about my own life and the choices I’ve made in it. I have many regrets. And I have finally learned that they color many of my interactions with my daughters, and rarely in a positive way.

I was a timid kid. By nature as well as circumstance. I tended to sit back and observe when faced with a new situation, and moving as my family did every three years in my formative years meant I was often in a new situation. I was also self-conscious about entering late into an activity, so even after I felt like I understood what was going on I was reluctant to engage. So I regularly sat apart and wished I could be a part of the action.

My daughters are reserved as well. Which was evident from their births. They are decidedly different in many respects, but in this area they are the same. They are shy on first meeting, like me. They are slow to jump in. We’ve moved just once though, when they were both very young, so I think perhaps their comfort with familiar friends and familiar places is higher than mine was at their ages..

Knowing how excluded I felt as a child, and knowing how sad that felt to me, I encouraged my daughters to throw themselves into new situations, to embrace change, to step forward at every opportunity. I did so with the best of intentions, trying to help them avoid the isolation I felt when I was their ages. But I fear all I did was add stress to their lives, which is, of course, just what kids these days need more of. I forgot the first – and really only – rule of successful parenting: love the child you have, not the child you want. Or, said specifically to me, love the child you have, not the child you were.

I did the same with sports and with musical instruments, insisting not just on their participation, but their dedication. We did let them choose their activities, but we also insisted that they have activities, their mother for her reasons, me in the hope they would engage more fully than I did with the world I so desperately wanted to be more a part of. But rather than let that be the end of it, rather than let them decide how much of each activity they’d bite off, I tried to force engagement. Which runs counter to my daughters’ natures. And mine too.

As adults, they both feel anxious at times, and I wonder how much of that is just their nature and how much I contributed to it with my prodding. They are also more accomplished than I was then, so how much of that is their nature and how much the result of my hectoring? I tend to give them credit for their achievements and take blame for their stress. If happiness is the goal of life – and I believe it is – both stress and accomplishment are important parts of the happiness equation. I hope I’ve balanced some of the stress I induced with some of the striving they’ve experienced. But I don’t really know, and I suspect they’ll never know either.

My Daughter

My oldest daughter graduated from college over the weekend.

Such milestones prompt reflection for me. I couldn’t help but relive her birth, the delight I felt in her infancy, the mental and emotional turbulence of seeing her navigate her young life, cheering (and sometimes cringing) as she faced fears and tackled new challenges with varying degrees of success, balancing support for her with coaching and even discipline. I was better at the coaching and discipline, I’m afraid.

With some chagrin I admit that she emulated my study habits in her early academic career, procrastinating on homework and projects until she absolutely had to begin. As much as she was afraid of engaging with her work – afraid she wouldn’t measure up, I suspect – she couldn’t let her teachers down by failing to turn in something. I saw a lot of myself in her then: awareness of her talents, but unsure if they would really translate to excellence, and very much afraid to find out.

Some of my favorite memories of time with her were very stressful. She demands much energy at the best of times, but when she had a school project due, well, anxiety ran very high. Still, once we had a plan, we worked well together. She’s always been able to focus on the task at hand once she settles on it.

CLB Graduation Steps 4 Blog Our work together started with her fourth-grade California history project. We made a model of a gold-rush settlement called Squabbletown mostly out of popsicle sticks. It took many steps – we had to make the ground, paint it, add foliage, build and assemble the buildings – all of which we crammed into the weekend before it was due. Naturally.

She started off the same in middle school. Her project then was to build a model of an Egyptian sarcophagus. Again, multiple steps of designing the coffin, finding materials, painting, assembling, and writing a narrative. All of which we crammed into the weekend before it was due. Same with a model of the Parthenon.

And then she parted ways with my own middle-school self (that extended through my college graduation, and, to be honest, beyond). She found that the stress of delaying her projects affected her much worse than the thought that she might not deliver an acceptable product.

In seventh grade she started planning her projects, finishing them well before their due dates and enhancing her happiness greatly. She stopped needing my help. I had been the training wheels for her academic bicycle ride, and, as is the fate of parents throughout time, I was sidelined to her developing competence. And as much as I hoped for that transition, as much as I ache to see her blossom into all of her abilities, I miss not the uncertain and underconfident little girl (though I loved that little girl fiercely) but rather the tangible value I provided that she needed then and doesn’t need now. I have to admit that I’m a bit adrift, searching for the things that she needs from me now. The challenge is no longer hers, but mine, and I’ve not built all the habits or mastered the skills that will tell me what those are. But I do strive, because I believe that she needs me, even if I don’t know exactly how.

Watching her become not just more capable but also more aware of her talents and more sure of her efforts has been as gratifying and as satisfying as anything I’ve ever done myself. Seeing her pride in her success, watching her with the friends who adore her, hearing the professors who praise her, it’s all so affirming. Of what she’s done to this point, but also of the efforts of her mother and me. Accepting her hard-won diploma (magna cum laude, no less – please forgive me) was a milestone for her.

And for me. And I hope there are many more milestones ahead.